Feb, 14.
Not to be able to see the wood for the trees is a common experience. But not tobe able see the trees for the wood is more rare. This is rather the feeling that one has in reading the lofty and impressive speech made by Mr. Lionel Curtis at the farewell banquet to which he was entertained on Tuesday night. It would be quite possible to argue over details of the speech, but these are unimportant compared with the whole effect it- produces, with the ideals it sets out, and with the revelation it conveys of the mind of the speaker himself. One feels that Mr. Curtis is guided by lights which, if not' invisible to ordinary men, are usually dismissed by them as impracticable in this work-a-day world. It is well to be reminded from time to time of the existence of these. lights. And perhaps among the services Mr. Curtis has rendered to Shanghai, of which Tuesday. night's dinner was some recognition, none will be found to take higher place than his farewell speech.
Recent visitors to Shanghat have been kinder to us than were some in 1927, when our backs were literally against the wall, and when not the least bitter taste in our daily portion was the thought that we were cruelly misunderstood in Europe and America. We would paricularly thank Mr. Curtis for his contemptuous definition of the "legend of Shanghai created by a journalist" as something which "he might have written himself if he had spent his whole time here in bed reading stu? that other people had printed." As a description of the methods pursued by the person in question, nothing could be more apts and Shanghai realized with amazement that ibels vot this kind were readily swallowed abroad, when the reports of sober and experienced men, addressed to others at home who had had knowledge for many years both of the writers and of the Far East, were seemingly dismissed as mere hysteria. In contrast with those days, we recall the observation of a recent visitor that it was "now known beyond all doubt" that the Nationalist movement in 1926 and early 1927 was "wholly engineered and controlled from Moscow." One was tempted to ask when precisely the West had discover= ed what Shanghai had told it repeatedly all through those troublous days. But the moral is obvious. If people abroad now find that what Shanghai said in 1927 was trae, it is only reasonable to ask that they will pay some attention to what it says in this year of grace 1980. Mr. Arnhold rather pathetically protested on Tuesday evening that Shanghai did really think of other things than the closing hours of cabarets; and he felt sure of his ground in turning Mr., Curtis as one who would realize that we are guided in our counsels not entirely commercialism, but also by wider outlook,—an outlook which takes into consideration the rapidly changing conditions in China."
That is so true a presentation of the best foreign feeling Shanghai that we hope we shall not be accused of throwing cold water if we urge that, precisely because conditions in China are changing so rapidly, and often without the volition of those who should control them, the changes "nich we can control should be made the more slowly -and with the greater circumspection. The is of Mr. Curtis's speech was.
watual trust, and it is one that we would fain accept and work upon. The basis of Mr.
Ya-ching's speech was. loyalty and tolerance: he put the point of view of Chinese mer~ chants as we have known them and dealt with them for many' years, and as we would gladly deal with them in still witer fields: of cooperation. But, it is perhaps permissible to: point out that these same Chinese. mer-chats are themselves full. of misgiving as to what the future way bring forth. The admiaistration of government im Ching. Las still to take a stable form. 'Tie most earnest efforts of its Lest members are still parpetitally blocked by some' invisible
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.